(I work in a place that is well known for sausage rolls and coffee. All is going well for a quiet Tuesday afternoon and I haven’t served a customer in about five minutes. In comes an old fella who I don’t recognize as a regular. He places a sandwich on the counter. I ask in my usual friendly way, as upselling is an unfortunate part of the job:)

Me: “You can get a hot or cold drink with that for an extra 40p.”

Customer: *replies, colder than the British weather this week* “Did I say I wanted a drink?”

Me: *a little taken aback by his sour tone* “No, but I am required to ask.”

Customer: *grumbling hard* “I don’t want a d*** drink. All you want is to make me spend more money. I don’t like spending money.”

(Makes me wonder why he bothered coming in to buy anything in the first place, but I don’t say it aloud.)

Me: “Okay, then. That’s [price] on its own.”

Customer: *with an attitude like a toddler and obviously trying to pick a fight* “No, I don’t want it now. I wouldn’t feed it to the rats.”

Me: “That’s fine.”

(He huffs off and leaves. I am too caught off-guard to even make a witty comment about the ironic situation. About thirty minutes later, he returns. Luckily, my boss is on a break and I’m the only one here; otherwise, I’d never normally be this naughty.)

Customer: *a little less bitter now* “Two sausage rolls.”

Me: “You want sausage rolls from here? I’m sorry, but I can only give these to the rats.”

(I eventually got a small apology out of him — I was astounded! — and the rest of the transaction went all right. Just goes to show that sometimes it’s good to be a little cocky back, even if you’re not supposed to.)

(I work in a popular, fairly cheap bakery and food-on-the-go retailer in the UK. We have a range of sandwiches, including several we can heat, but those are packaged in obvious brown packaging. We can’t heat any other sandwiches because of the ingredients.)

Customer: *handing me a cheese salad sandwich* “Hey, can you toast this for me?”

Me: “No, sorry, sir. We can only toast the sandwiches in the brown wrappers.”

Customer: “You won’t toast this one?”

Me: “No, sorry. Did you still want it?”

Customer: *pauses* “How am I supposed to eat it, then?”

(This isn’t said aggressively, but rather as if he’s utterly confused about this conundrum.)

Me: “Most people eat them with their hands; I don’t know about you.”

(There was a moment of stunned silence, and then he paid and left. Thankfully, my manager thought it was absolutely hilarious and I didn’t get written up!)

I used to work in a nightclub, and when going round collecting glasses I would occasionally get my a**e grabbed. I would immediately turn round and give the offending bloke a hard kick in the a**e back. My manager — the best boss ever, also a bloke — used to send all the new girls to me to train knowing I would tell them to do this. The bouncers also backed me up every time. One time the guy that grabbed me even apologised!

One occasion sticks in my mind — this was about 15 years ago — on a mid-week night when only three bouncers were working. There were five members of a well-known local sports team in the club. One of them grabbed my a**e, so I turned round and demanded to know which one of them had done it because I couldn’t be sure given that I was facing the other way. All five of them just laughed in my face.

I told the bouncers who then demanded they all leave, and they refused. The bouncers were outnumbered, so the police were called. All five got thrown out, despite these five degenerates repeatedly calling me a liar.  

Sometimes you’re lucky enough to work with awesome people, where the good guys outnumber the bad.

(It is my very first day of working in a charity shop and I’ve never worked in retail until now. A customer approaches me with a DVD in hand; it has an old sticker on it saying, “£5 off.”)

Customer: “Does this have £5 off?”

(The price clearly states it is £4.49, so it is impossible to have £5 off.)

Me: “No, I believe it is £4.49.” *points to the sticker above which says, “£4.49”*

Customer: “But it says, ‘£5 off.’” *points to the sticker which clearly states a different store*

Me: *to coworker* “Does this have £5 off?”

Coworker: “No.” *looks at the customer* “It says, ‘£4.49,’ there.”

Customer: “Oh. Then it’s too expensive.” *to coworker* “Would you like me to put it back?”

Coworker: “It’s all right; I can do it.”

Customer: *hands over a jacket that is £4.49*

Me: *mentally face-palms as the customer hands me a £10 note*

I am an 18-year-old, part-time sales assistant for a very high-end store that does women’s and children’s fashion and accessories. My branch specialises in female occasion wear; this includes for little girls from six months. Prices are steep. Our best sellers are the little girl items. They make up almost 70% of our profit, primarily because we’re the only store who actually do occasion kids’ clothing in the location. It’s gotten to the point where we’re asked to stock the boys clothes, too, which we feed back to our head office.

Head office decides to make a change. They decide to remove all kids’ clothing from our store. We argue about it, and they say they’ve looked at sales of the shops around us — the ones that don’t even stock kids’ clothing — and feel kids’ clothing won’t do well here despite the fact we’re always above target. We’re extremely angry about the decision, and our branch manager points out this fact, but they don’t listen and have it taken out.

Our customers are pretty upset by it, and we give them the customer complaint number and email as we literally have zero say. We advise that they’ll only change it back if customers complain, and that it must come from them via those contact details.

All customers so far have been fine with this and promise to call and email. One customer, an older lady, gasps when she goes to the previously-kids’ section, coming straight over to me to ask what happened. I explain and give her the complaint number and general spiel of what to do. She’s upset, and explains she was coming in to buy dresses for her granddaughters as they are being bridesmaids for their mum. Since she knows the exact sizes, style, and colour she needs, I tell her she can order them — a facility we have in the store — but the customer isn’t sure as the wedding is two weeks away. My branch manager overhears and says that she can put in a code to give the older lady same-day delivery for free. She is thrilled and goes with my branch manager, though she tells me she’ll make a complaint with the number I gave her while stating that the staff were super helpful.

I’m glad the issue is resolved, and I go back to what I was doing. A few minutes later, a different customer, a younger woman in her 30s, comes up and asks about the kids’ section. I explain the situation and she goes completely off on me, yelling at me, asking how dare I get rid of the kids’ stuff, and telling me that I must hate kids and that I’m discriminating against mothers. I keep trying to explain the procedure, but she won’t listen. She’s absolutely irate. I try to help but she just continues to scream at me.

Suddenly, “WHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP AND LISTEN?!” is yelled from across the store. It’s the previous customer. The younger woman splutters, but the older lady isn’t having any of it, telling the younger woman how she should mind her manners and how stupid she is if she thinks a sales assistant has any say in it. The younger woman looks abashed and quiets down, so I ask her if she needs kids’ items today or tomorrow. She says no, she just wanted to browse it; in fact, she doesn’t even have kids and admits she just is in a bad mood. The older lady scolds her again for causing such a ruckus for no reason, so the younger woman leaves.

I thank the older lady for helping out; she responds that she knew we couldn’t do anything to stop her. My store manager knocks 70% off her purchase, our maximum that can be authorised.

Eventually, our head office puts back the kids’ stuff, including boys’ stuff this time, claiming it was an “admin error.” That “admin error” lost us thousands and resulted in me getting screeched at by some woman who just wanted to make someone else’s day bad. On the plus side, the older lady regularly comes in for a chat and a browse.